SOMEBODY TO LOVE Wins PFP's Screenplay Contest

Pride Films and Plays is delighted to announce the winner of our 2015 Great Gay Screenplay contest is Somebody to Love by Jay Cipriani. The victor was selected Sunday, November 15 at the conclusion of PFP?s Gay Film Week in the Hoover-Leppen Theatre of Center on Halsted. The weekend included enhanced staged readings of the top five scripts, including A Place in the Woods by Erik Gernand, Finndale by Lloyd Ohls, Drowning City by Chuck Griffith, and The Gay Shoe Clerks by Brad Cryan. The week also commenced on Monday, November 9 with Queer Bits Fall Film Festival II at the Public House Theatre. The festival included two programs comprised of 11 short films all having their Chicago premieres and included a talkback with Chicago filmmaker Dan Pal, whose short Another Party with Scotty was featured in the festival.

Pride Films and Plays was delighted to have Jay Cipriani, Erik Gernand, Lloyd Ohls, Chuck Griffith and Brad Cryan attend the festival weekend and hear their screenplays come to life. The screenwriters noted how exciting and important to their development it is to hear their work performed.

Somebody to Love synopsis:

Somebody to Love follows two polar opposite gay men who are forced to share a rental car cross country and form an unlikely friendship as a wedding looms for one of them.

(The cast, director, and screenwriter of Somebody to Love (left to right) Paul Russell, Addison Heimann, Chris Miller, Chris Brickhouse, Screenwriter Jay Cipriani, Christina Brady, PFP Company Member James Nedrud, Colleen Sheean, and Director and Company Member Dan Pal.)

Jay Cipriani biography:

Jay Cipriani is a graduate of West Virginia University where he majored in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing. He received his MFA in Film Production from The University of Southern California?s School of Cinematic Arts and also studied film at New York University?s Tisch School of the Arts. He began his career in story development and production working with writer/director Barry Levinson, producers Paula Weinstein, Len Amato, and Palak Patel, and later with writer Ted Griffin. Later, he joined HBO?s Curb Your Enthusiasm assisting the show?s writing team, Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer and David Mandel. A Golden Christmas, ION Television?s first original film, was his first produced screenplay and he also wrote its subsequent sequels. Jay was a quarter finalist for the Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship as well as a Scriptapalooza, New Blood, and Table Ready My Screenplay SemiFinalist. A Top 100 Emerging Screenwriter and most recently a Top Five finalist in the Screencraft Comedy Screenplay competition, he currently teaches screenwriting at New York Film Academy in Burbank, CA and just completed work on the movieChristmas Land that will air on the Hallmark Channel in December. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

PFP Company Member Dan Pal directed the reading of Somebody to Love and had this to say about the experience: ?It was a great pleasure to direct the staged reading of Jay Cipriani's screenplay Somebody to Love. What attracted me most to the script was how it beautifully explores the wide breadth of perspectives and attitudes held by gay men today concerning everything from marriage to music. No two gay characters are alike. It also brings together several heterosexual characters that are also devoid of usual stereotypes. Cipriani has a wonderful knack for writing witty and revealing dialogue. Our cast warmly embraced these words which offered enough room for them to provide their own unique line and character interpretations. It was a distinct pleasure for all of us to be involved with this reading. Congratulations to Jay!?

Jay had this to say about his experience during Gay Film Weekend: "I wrote the script in the hopes of ultimately seeing it performed and this was truly a wonderful opportunity in that not only was it a fantastic performance thanks to the talents of Dan and the amazing cast, but being able to also experience the enthusiastic response from the live audience and seeing that they enjoyed it as much as I did made it all the more special."

Congratulations to Jay and all our finalists! And special thanks to the filmmakers, directors, actors, crew, and programmers that made Gay Film Week a success!

About Pride Films and Plays

The mission of Pride Films and Plays is to change lives through the generation of diverse new work (or work that is new to Chicago) with LGBTQ+ characters or themes that is essential viewing for all audiences. We accomplish this mission through fully-staged productions, writing contests and staged readings, film screenings, and special events. We foster long term relationships with artists to create programming that is as diverse, unique, and complex as the community we represent. In 2015, Huffington Post called PFP ?A powerful and empowering entity.?

PFP?s current season began with the Jeff Recommended productions of Men on the Verge of a His-Panic Breakdown at the Apollo Studio Theater and The Boy From Oz at Stage 773. Noel Coward?s Design for Living runs Oct 22 to November 22 at Rivendell Theater and Ten Dollar House runs January 7 to 31 at Piccolo Theatre. In addition, our script and screenplay development programs continue throughout the year at Center on Halsted, including Gay Play Weekend (May 2016), LezPlay (September 2016) featuring plays and screenplays written by women with lesbian characters or themes, and Gay Film Weekend (November 2016) featuring LGBT screenplays and screenings.

Other special events include Winter Memories at Twisted Vine on December 7 and Winter LezFest: A Holiday CeleGAYtion at Mary?s Attic on December 15.

Pride Films and Plays is supported by The MacArthur Fund for Arts & Culture at The Richard Driehaus Foundation, The Illinois Arts Council, City of Chicago?s City Arts Fund, the Elliott Fredland Charitable Trust, Proud to Run, and the AmazonSmile Foundation. PFP is a member of the Smart Growth Program of the Chicago Community Trust. Pride Films and Plays is a member of the Chicago Area Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, The League of Chicago Theaters, and the Central Lakeview Merchants Association.

For more information, visit www.pridefilmsandplays.com or call 1 800 737 0984.

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